Oracle shares fell 6% on Wednesday after the database software maker reported lower quarterly revenue than expected.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: $2.26 adjusted vs. $1.64 expected
- Revenue: $16.06 billion vs. $16.21 billion expected
Oracle’s revenue grew 14% year over year in the quarter that ended Nov. 30, according to a statement. Net income, at $6.14 billion, or $2.14 per share, rose from $3,151 billion, or $1.13 per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Adjusted earnings exclude stock-based compensation.
The company posted $7.98 billion in cloud revenue, more than the $7.92 consensus among analysts polled by StreetAccount. Cloud infrastructure revenue totaled $4.1 billion.
Remaining performance obligations, a measure of contracted revenue that hasn’t yet been recognized, soared 438% to $523 billion, topping the $501.8 billion average analyst estimate, according to StreetAccount. Doug Kehring, Oracle’s principal financial officer, said in the release that RPO were driven “by new commitments from Meta, Nvidia and others.”
Over the past decade, Oracle has diversified its business beyond databases and enterprise software and into cloud infrastructure, where it competes with Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Those companies are all vying for big AI contracts and are investing heavily in data centers and hardware necessary to meet expected demand.
OpenAI, which sparked the generative AI rush with the launch of ChatGPT three years ago, has committed to spending more than $300 billion on Oracle’s infrastructure services over five years.
The report lands at a critical moment for Oracle, which has tried to position itself at the center of the artificial intelligence boom by committing to massive build-outs. While the move has been a boon for Oracle’s revenue and its backlog, investors have grown concerned about the amount of debt the company is raising and the risks it faces should the AI market slow.
Oracle raised $18 billion during the period, one of the biggest issuances on record for a tech company. Skeptical investors have been buying five-year credit default swaps, driving them to multiyear highs. Credit default swaps are like insurance for investors, with buyers paying for protection in case the borrower can’t repay its debt.
“Customer concentration is a major issue here, but I think the bigger thing is, How are they going to pay for this?” said RBC analyst Rishi Jaluria, who has the equivalent of a hold rating on Oracle’s stock.
During the quarter, Oracle named executives Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia as the company’s new CEOs, succeeding Safra Catz. Oracle also introduced AI agents for automating various facets of finance, human resources and sales.
Oracle shares plummeted 23% in November, its worst monthly performance since 2001 and, as of Wednesday’s close, is 32% below its record reached in September. Still, the shares are up 34% for the year, outperforming the Nasdaq, which has gained 22% over that stretch.
The company generated $5.88 billion in fiscal second-quarter software revenue, down 3% and lower than StreetAccount’s $6.06 billion consensus.
Oracle said that GAAP and adjusted earnings were impacted by a $2.7 billion pre-tax gain on the sale of Ampere, which SoftBank agreed to acquire for $6.5 billion in March. Oracle, which was an investor in Ampere, said at the time that it would sell its stake.
“Oracle sold Ampere because we no longer think it is strategic for us to continue designing, manufacturing and using our own chips in our cloud data centers,” Chairman and co-founder Larry Ellison said in the release. He said the company is “now committed to a policy of chip neutrality,” and will continue to buy the latest graphics processing chips from Nvidia, but needs “to be prepared and able to deploy whatever chips our customers want to buy.”
Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.
— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.
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